(Bloomberg) — ServiceNow Inc. reported strong third-quarter sales and bookings as the software company expands its suite of AI tools.

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Subscription sales, which account for the bulk of ServiceNow’s revenue, increased 23% to $2.7 billion in the period, the company said Wednesday in a statement. Current remaining performance obligation, a measure of booked sales, increased 26% in the period ending Sept. 30. Both exceeded analysts’ estimates.

The Santa Clara, California-based company makes applications that help companies organize and automate their personnel and information technology operations. Like its peers, ServiceNow is baking generative AI features into its products and offers a pricier tier with those tools.

The company’s main generative AI assistant product, Now Assist, is the fastest-growing in company history, Chief Executive Officer Bill McDermott said in an interview. The average contract premium for users of Now Assist is 30%, he added.

The shares hit a record high Thursday in New York, jumping about 6%. Investors were initially unimpressed with the results, with the stock trading down Wednesday evening. The shares had increased 28% this year through Wednesday’s close. That’s more than twice the rally seen in the iShares Expanded Software ETF, which is often used as a sector benchmark.

The results “validate the company’s rare standing in enterprise software,” wrote Tyler Radke, an analyst at Citigroup. He cited strong execution in a tough environment for tech spending and early monetization of generative AI.

In recent weeks, ServiceNow and software peers like Salesforce Inc. and Microsoft Corp. have begun emphasizing AI “agents” that can complete tasks without user supervision. Some customers are already trying ServiceNow’s agents, which will be released more broadly next month, McDermott said. Once the agents are fully rolled out, they’ll be priced differently from other products, McDermott added.

For the current quarter ending in December, ServiceNow projected subscription revenue of about $2.88 billion, just ahead of analyst estimates. The company expects near-term bookings to rise 21.5%.

This bookings guidance was effectively “good, but not great,” Kirk Materne, an analyst at Evercore ISI, said in a note. He added that the company tends to issue conservative forecasts for the fourth quarter.

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